


Oh, love, we will burn (and we'll burn the whole world with us)

by LibraryCryptid



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angels, Angst, Demons, F/F, F/M, Season/Series 03, The Garden of Eden, always and forever a happy ending, but a happy ending, probably
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-07-10 22:07:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15958517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LibraryCryptid/pseuds/LibraryCryptid
Summary: It has been one month, two weeks, and three days since the gates of the Garden of Eden closed, locking Waverly behind them.It has been one month, two weeks, and three days since Wynonna vowed to do anything to get her sister back, even if it means burning down Heaven itself.-Wynonna lost her sister. Nicole lost her soulmate. And together, they'll set fire to the entirety of Purgatory to get Waverly home.





	1. Do Not Stand At My Grave and Weep

**Author's Note:**

> I should be outlining and otherwise prepping for NaNoWriMo, which fast approaches. Instead, I'm outlining and writing this. 
> 
> I fully expect this to fall into alternate universe category as soon as the finale airs next Friday, but it's already outlined and I smashed out a good chunk of it last night, so I'm too invested in this now to wait and see what happens. 
> 
> All of the chapter titles come from the poem Do Not Stand at my Grave and Weep by Mary Elizabeth Frye. It's very good and one of my favorites.

Wynonna is no stranger to anger. It’s a constantly simmering pot in her stomach, a beast curling inside her ribcage, a coat heavy over her shoulders. She knows how she reacts; anger always there and waiting for when she needs it. She should be raging, she should be screaming, she should boiling over with her eternal fury.

But she’s not. She’s on her hands in knees in the snow, wetness soaking her knees and her hands coated with the blood of her oldest enemy, and it’s like everything has suddenly gone flat and cold and _empty_.

Beside her, Nicole screams. Kind Nicole, steady Nicole, screams in a way that twists in Wynonna’s gut, inhuman and feral, and vaguely inside it, Wynonna can hear a name. A familiar name, twisted in a strange tangle of grief and fear and rage.

 _Waverly_.

It takes two to hold Nicole back, Jeremy and Robin each holding an arm, preventing her from scrambling forward, from going…somewhere. Into the forest? Swallowed by the mist and the rain? Wynonna doesn’t know. The stairs have vanished, the gates have shut with a bang that echoes in her ears.

Trapping Waverly behind them.

“We need to get her! We can’t just leave her there!” Nicole’s voice has reached a level of hysteria that Wynonna has never heard from her, fingers clawing gouges in the snow, leaving streaks of crimson in their path.  She’s fighting the two men holding her like a rabid dog stuck in a cage, teeth bared and eyes wild. “Wynonna. WYNONNA.”

It doesn’t compute. It’s like it’s not registering in Wynonna’s brain, the enormity of the situation, the way her life has just changed completely, utterly, in the barest of seconds. Something inside her has flatlined, leaving an empty beep in the space of a second throbbing heartbeat. Nicole is begging, Nicole is screaming, trying to get Wynonna to do something, but Wynonna doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do.

They found the Garden of Eden, they slayed the snake, and they _lived_. But the Garden charged a price, demanded more than the blood spilled there.

The Garden wanted an angel.

So it took theirs.

And, in barely a heartbeat, Waverly was lost to them.

Nicole rages, Nicole screams, but Wynonna kneels in the cold, cold snow, and she’s not sure if she’s ever felt so _quiet_.

♔

It has been one month, two weeks, and three days since the gates of the Garden of Eden closed, locking Waverly behind them.

Wynonna doesn’t think she’s slept since. Not truly, not deeply. She’s never been a heavy sleeper anyways; since a child she was prone to easily waking up, always ready to face Daddy and either one of his “trainings” or his rages. But her sleep now is worse than she ever remembers it being.

After Alice, her sleep was deep and long and heavy, dragging her into a blackness that was frightening in both its intensity and its quiet call of _come, stay here, stay in this dark_. After Waverly, it’s light and uneasy, full of dreams that twist into terrors. Dreams of her sister stolen from her, by men and monster and Garden alike.

Losing Alice felt like loosing a limb. Painful, yes, but bearable in the long run, a steady sort of ache that’s always there but not often overwhelming.

Losing Waverly is different. It feels like some vital organ is constantly being removed, pain sharp and stabbing, and Wynonna can’t handle it. It’s the twist of a hot knife in her gut, and she’s not sure how she’s supposed to sooth it.

She knows Nicole spends every spare second out in that forest, combing through the trees for any hint of the Garden that exists somewhere just out of their sight. She’ll come back to the Homestead in the middle of the night, cold and muddy and exhausted, and she’ll collapse at the table with the empty-eyed stare Wynonna knows all too well.

If Wynonna thought that there was a chance of finding Waverly out in the forest, she would be with Nicole, matching her step for step, mile for mile, searching for any hint that will lead to her finding her sister. But she doesn’t believe that. The Garden has had its fill of demons and demon hunters and magical guns. It has an angel once again, sitting on a throne of stone, and it does not want to be found.

So while Nicole stomps through the forest, Wynonna turns to the books. Piles and piles, old and new, bound in leather and paper, colored sticky notes marking pages in a pattern Wynonna can’t figure out. It feels wrong, to be handling Waverly’s books without Waverly breathing over her shoulder, letting out little squeaks when Wynonna turns the pages too roughly.

But the answer to finding her is in one of these, Wynonna knows, and so, cradling the books as carefully as if she was holding a baby, she cracks them open and begins to read.

♔

Three days after Waverly is stolen from them, Wynonna calls her cellphone. It’s a desperate, foolish hope, because she’s pretty sure cell service doesn’t cover magical gardens from the dawn of time, but she tries anyways.

The sound of Waverly’s voice telling her to leave a voicemail makes her cry. She sobs out a message, her pleas choked with tears, and afterwards she slides down the front of the fridge, hitting the floor hard enough to knock the breath from her lungs and she bawls.

♔

Wynonna’s never been drawn to the dark. She knows Willa’s flirted with it, the promise of magic, of becoming powerful a temptation her older sister could never resist. The older Wynonna gets, the more she begins to realize that Willa, no matter how strong, how powerful, how _absolute_ Willa seemed, she was actually the weakest of the three.

Black magic has never held a draw to Wynonna, not like it had to Willa. If she becomes powerful, she will do it with the strength of her own hands and not because some ancient magic allowed her to do so. But for Waverly…

For Waverly, she’s tempted. For the first time in her life, she finds herself tempted.

She knows where Waverly keeps the books. Tucked away in the bottom corner of the furthest bookshelf in the BBD offices, bound in red, brown, and black leather. She hasn’t opened one, not yet. It feels like crossing a formally uncrossable line, breaking some hard and fast rule she wasn’t even aware she had before now.

But she’s tempted.

Every time she passes that shelf, her fingertips itch. Because these books hold secrets; old, terrible secrets. And maybe one of those secrets will bring Waverly back.

♔

_Hi, you’ve reached Waverly’s cellphone! Either I can’t come to the phone or someone broke it again, but leave a message and I’ll call you back as soon as I can!_

_Beeeeep_

_Waves, babygirl, pick up. Please pick up. I know this is a longshot, and, god, Eden probably doesn’t have any reception if you even have your phone with you but please, pick up._

_If you’ve ever picked up one phone call in your life, please let it be this one._

_Waverly, I can’t lose you. Answer the phone._

_Please._

_Please…_

♔

It has been one month, two weeks, and three days since the gates of the Garden of Eden closed, locking Waverly behind them.

It has been one month, two weeks, and three days since Wynonna vowed to do anything to get her sister back, even if it means burning down Heaven itself.


	2. I am not there. I do not sleep

Nicole’s relationship with the forest of Purgatory is an uneasy one. She’s dreamt about this forest for almost her entire life, and her memories of it are always going to include rising flames and screams of the dying. It’s always going to be the place where Doll’s died, where Wynonna and Doc almost died, and now, where Waverly was taken from them.

From her.

And yet she still comes out, day after day, every free hour before a shift or after, every day off, she’s out in the forest screaming Waverly’s name until her voice is hoarse and her throat aches. She knows Wynonna thinks this is pointless.

But if she wasn’t doing this she doesn’t know what she would be doing, and the inactivity would kill her. So, day after day, she comes out here, wearing a pathway through the trees.

Some days Jeremy and Robin join.  Sometimes it’s just one or the other, sometimes it’s both, but she appreciates the silent companionship even if they don’t do much. They follow her through the trees, and sometimes Nicole forgets which or both came with her. They’re both silent, clearly unsure of what to say, too afraid of her newfound anger to try and break the silence.

Most of the time she’s alone. Just her and the trees and her echoing voice.

Surprisingly, though, one day she gets a second companion, and not one she expected.

She pulls her cruiser into the parking lot of the Ghost River National Park, and although the lot is typically empty (turns out, most people in Purgatory aren’t keen to go wandering in a park where people frequently vanish), there’s another car there. A nice one, a big and gleaming silver, clearly new and rarely driven. It’s unusual, but not too unusual; this particular entrance to the park is closer to the edges of town where the more well-off citizens live. Someone’s probably walking their dog or taking a late afternoon jog.

She steps out of her own car and stretches, working the stiffness of sitting all day at her desk out of her shoulders and back. The snow crunches beneath her feet, the warmer weather of March slowly starting to melt it, turning it into muddy slush.

“Deputy Haught!”

Nicole turns to see a familiar head of red hair striding towards her. Mercedes Gardner smiles in a way that isn’t quite warm, but a good deal friendlier than her Widow doppelgänger’s cruel snarl.

“Hi, Mercedes,” Nicole says, carefully, her mind already churning to figure out how to get out of whatever favor Mercedes wants. She doesn’t have time for this. She bounces from foot to foot, itching to get out into the woods already, to keep searching.

Nicole needs to find her. Needs it like she needs her next breath, needs it more than sleep or food or whatever other trivial matters come into the Sheriff’s office. Purgatory without Waverly is…empty. Waverly is warmth, is the beating, beautiful heart of the small town, and it’s been agony to be without her.

Nicole’s not sure how much longer she can stand it

“Wynonna told me you’d be here.” Mercedes pulls on a pair of leather, fur lined gloves, somehow managing to make the simple action look elegant, refined.

Nicole forces a smile while internally she curses the very ground Wynonna walks on. When she gets back to the homestead, Nicole is going to _kill_ her.

“She did?”

“She said you’re always here after work.” Mercedes crosses her arms and cocks an eyebrow, waiting expectantly. “So, tell me, what’s the plan?”

The question throws Nicole for a loop, because whatever she had been expecting, it was not this. “The plan?”

“Yes, the plan,” Mercedes repeats, impatience creeping into her voice. “Why else would I be here?”

“You’re here to help.” The realization dawns on Nicole, and, shocked, she stares at the woman in front of her.

“Don’t act so surprised.”

“Sorry. I, uh…I didn’t know you were coming.”

Mercedes just raises an eyebrow and waits. Nicole stares at her for a second, and then, sighing, leans back into her car, digging around until she unearths two handheld radios. She passes one to Mercedes, clipping the other to her belt. “We’re looking for any traces of Waverly. This doesn’t just mean anything that belongs to her; we’re also looking for traces of the Garden. If you see any unusual plants, stairs that seem to lead to nowhere…”

Tall, golden gates, trapping an angel inside.

Swallowing a lump developing in her throat, shoving memories of _that day_ away, Nicole pulls her hat down tighter over her ears. “If you see anything, radio me. Anything at all. I…I need to find her.”

And for once, Mercedes doesn’t have anything to say. She just quietly follows Nicole into the forest, and Nicole doesn’t look back.

♔

They stay out for hours. The early afternoon sunlight turns into the dark shadows of nightfall, and still Nicole trudges forward. She’s sure she’s walking in circles, her internal navigation long since gone quiet. She’s stopped calling out some time ago, and now she just wanders, a ghost amongst the trees. Every once and a while her radio will crackle, Mercedes either complaining about the cold or making sure Nicole is still alive, but other than that, she’s alone in the silence.

She’s not sure how she finds herself back at the parking lot, staggering on aching legs. Mercedes is there, pink-cheeked from the cold and leaning against the front of her car, arms crossed.

“There you are. I was worried you went and fell into the river.”

“Still here.” Nicole unlocks her squad car and turns it on, allowing the heat to begin to fill the cold space. She begins the slow process of removing her layers, tossing her hat, coat, and gloves into the back. Although her face is cold, her undershirt is damp with sweat and sticks unpleasantly to her back, but she has nothing to change in to.

Mercedes watches her, concern etched into her face. “Nicole, how long have you been doing this?”

 _One month, two weeks, three days._ Every spare chance she gets, for hours. She’s pretty sure she’s combed every single inch of the park, walked from the border to the big city, but she still keeps going. She must. She has to do _something_.

“Long enough,” is the answer Mercedes gets instead. Nicole climbs inside her car to switch out her heavy snow boots to the pair of slippers she keeps under the front seat of her car. She’s suddenly aware of how cold her toes are, because no matter how many socks she wears or how warm her boots are, the chill of seven hours in the snow will creep in.

“This isn’t healthy, Nicole.”

“Why are you even here, Mercedes?” Nicole turns on her, her temper flaring to life in the blink of an eye. “Why the hell are you even here? Is it because she healed your face?”

Mercedes doesn’t seem offended. She just pushes herself off her car and opens the driver’s side door.

“Partly,” she admits, boosting herself inside. “But also…” she shrugs. “It’s Waverly. And Nicole? I think you’d be surprised how many people in this town would be out looking for her if they knew.”

That stops Nicole. She watches as Mercedes pulls her car out of the lot, bumping onto the gravel street that leads back towards the town. Because she wouldn’t be surprised.

Waverly had the reputation of an angel long, long before they knew how literal that would turn out to be.

♔

“You look like shit, Haught.”

“Hi to you too, Wynonna.” Nicole shrugs out of her jacket and flops down at the kitchen table across from the scowling Earp, pressing the palms of her hands into her eyes. She’s got a headache, mild right now but it has the promises of turning into a full-on migraine. Her throat scratches with every word, overuse turning it hoarse. She wants a cup of tea and a hot shower, but she can’t gather the strength it would take to walk up the flight of stairs.

She’d moved into the Earp homestead some time within the last month and a half, only returning to her house to get a change of clothes and feed Calamity Jane before leaving again. She can’t bear the thought of being in her house alone. Can’t go into her bedroom and see Waverly’s spare clothes in her closet and her pillow on Nicole’s bed and the absolutely ridiculous pile of blankets carefully folded at the foot. Wynonna hasn’t said anything. Nicole thinks that Wynonna can’t bear an empty house, either.

“Did you find anything?”

“No. You?”

“No.”

Wynonna curls her hands around the mug in front of her, and although it looks like coffee, judging by the open bottle of whiskey on the table it has a kick to it. Nicole considers stealing the bottle, aches for the blurry, buzzy emptiness of alcohol, but she hasn’t had any since she got shitfaced drunk the night after Waverly vanished. No one could find her for hours, Wynonna told her later, not until Jeremy found her barefoot out in the forest, cursing the trees. The fact that she _drove_ herself there scares her, and she doesn’t want it to happen again.

“What if we can’t find her, Wynonna?” Nicole pushes her palms harder into her eyes, trying to shove away the sting of tears. “What if she’s gone?”

“She can’t be.”

“But what if-“

“SHE CAN’T BE!” Wynonna roars, slamming her coffee cup down on the table. The ceramic shatters, sending coffee sloshing across the table. They both watch the brown puddle spread across the table, drip down onto the floor, neither moving to clean it up.

“We’re going to get her back, Nicole,” Wynonna whispers, and it’s the use of Nicole’s first name that makes her look up. Wynonna’s face is empty, a blank mask, and Nicole can’t read any emotion in it.

“We have to get her back.”


	3. I am a thousand winds that blow

Four days after Waverly is taken, Doc shows up on the Homestead doorstep.

At first, Wynonna considers just letting him stand there, let him shiver out in the cold, but God, she’s tired, and she knows he’ll just keep knocking and she wants this over with.

So, she opens the door, props a hip against the doorframe, crosses her arms, and waits.

Doc looks awful. Pale as a ghost, dark bags heavy under bloodshot eyes. Wynonna wants to say something, wants to call on the usual snark, but she knows she doesn’t look much better, and she’s so _tired_.

“Wynonna,” Doc starts, but she cuts him off.

“Nicole and Jeremy told me. About Charlie. About what you did.”

It had taken some prying to get it out of them. She’d known they knew something about why Doc wasn’t with them, why he wasn’t standing by their side, ready to take Bulshar down. She’d cornered Jeremy and he’s never been able to keep a secret from her when she’s confronting him face on, and he’d told her.

Wynonna wishes she was surprised. But she’s not. She’s seen that gleam in his eyes, after all. The same as in Kate’s, the wild, feral hunger, and she knows it was only so long before Doc gave in. He’s never been one to turn down power.

“I tried-“

“Bullshit,” Wynonna snaps, her unsteady grasp on composure sliding. “You weren’t starving. Nicole told me you got a blood bag earlier in the day. You…you _ate_ him.”

Doc looks at her, hat in his hands, one part pleading, one part apologetic. “You don’t understand, Wynonna, how hungry I am. And we’d almost died. I was choking on smoke, and the next thing I know he’s pulling me out of the house, and I just…snapped.”

“Here’s the thing, Doc,” Wynonna says, “When I “snap”, I don’t go and _murder_ someone.”

“I didn’t…it wasn’t…”

“Oh!” Wynonna laughs, sharp and hard. “Are you seriously going to try and tell me it wasn’t murder? He saved you, and you _killed_ him. And that sounds a lot like murder to me.”

Doc’s apologetic manner fades away as he snarls, his teeth lengthening, sharpening, glinting with gold. “Says the woman whose entire purpose is to kill people.”

It’s spit at her, tainted with poison, and Wynonna laughs again, hiding how much it stings.

Because it’s true. The only thing she’s truly good at is killing people. She was made to do this, fate deciding for her the moment she first held Peacekeeper in her hands at twelve years old. But there’s a key difference, one she’s not going to let Doc forget. She’s killing people who are already dead, who should still be dead, who have mutated and rotted in Hell until they are no longer mortal and no longer human. But Charlie was human. Charlie was innocent. All he wanted was to help people.

And Doc killed him. Charlie’s blood is in his stomach and coats his shirt still, and in this moment, Wynonna hates him. She hates him like she’s never hated anyone else.

“I liked him, Doc!” she growls. She steps forward, glaring up at him. “I was…I could have been _happy_ with him. And I can’t remember the last time I was happy. You stole that from me.”

Doc’s teeth retract, but his chest is still heaving, eyes flashing.

“I did this for you, Wynonna.”

“You didn’t ask me first,” she snaps. She’s up in his face, nose to nose with the man she loves, the man she considers family. Or the thing that used to be the man who was family. She’s not sure that Doc, _her_ Doc, is in there anymore.

She turns her back.

The warmth of the inside of the Homestead beckons, and the warmth of the glass of whiskey sitting on the kitchen counter calls out to her, too. She glances over her shoulder, and her voice is cold, full of chips of ice sharp enough to cut.

“I am not in the habit of talking with monsters.”

It’s a cruel blow, and Wynonna knows it, but she’s so fucking _tired._

Doc lunges, rage boiling up and over, reaching out for her, but he freezes as Wynonna whips around, Peacemaker glowing orange and pointed directly at his forehead. He still presses forward, carefully, then recoils as some unseen force prevents him from stepping over the threshold.

“John Henry Holliday,” Wynonna says, no emotion in her voice. “You are no longer welcome on my land.”

“You don’t want to do this, Wynonna. Think of our daughter.”

“You don’t get to play that card anymore.” Wynonna lowers the gun, lets it dangle limply at her side. “She’s not here right now. And I don’t think Doc Holliday is, either.”

She closes the door in his face and doesn’t bother to stay to watch him leave.

♔

It has been one month and thirteen days since Wynonna last saw Doc, and she’s not even sure if she cares.

♔

 

Four days after Waverly is stolen, Nicole goes to a bar to start a fight.

That wasn’t her intention to begin with, although if she’s truly being honest with herself, she didn’t go there to drink, either. She orders a beer and can only manage a sip of it before pushing it away. It makes her stomach churn, both with the taste and with the memory of the last time she was drunk, so instead she just sits at a booth in the corner of the room.

She’d driven out of town, far enough away that there isn’t any risk of anyone recognizing her, either to give her sympathy or to ask where Waverly is. But now that she’s out, all she wants to do is go home.

She curls both of her hands around the chilled glass, condensation dripping down her fingers, staring down into the amber liquid. It’s late enough at night that the bar is full, the dive attracting people who want bad pizza and worse alcohol after a hard day at work. She doesn’t recognize anyone in the crowd, but the chatter, the sound of pool balls hitting, and echo of drunk laughter only makes her feel like she’s in Shorty’s, like she didn’t get away at all.

Something does cut through the usual chatter eventually. A girl and a guy, arguing. And something about it makes Nicole’s ears perk up. Maybe it’s instinct, maybe it’s habit, but she abandons her beer (she was never going to drink it, anyways) and goes to see.

What she finds is a guy towering over a girl who is clearly not into whatever’s happening. The guy is tall and blond, one hand propped against the wall, trapping the girl. She has her palm on his chest and a drink in the other hand, clearly trying to push him away, and she looks young. She’s arguing with him, and Nicole can see the shape of _no_ in her mouth. And she’s so young. Too young to out alone at this time of night, let alone be drinking. So, Nicole puts on her sheriff smile and goes over.

“What seems to be going on here, folks?” she asks, friendly but not overly so. The girl, shrunken against the wall, sags in relief at Nicole’s approach, but her presence has the opposite effect on the guy.

“None of your damn business,” the guy snaps, but Nicole doesn’t back down. She just crosses her arms and calmly stares up at him. His breath reeks of beer, and Nicole has a sudden flashback to Champ Hardy, drunk and drugged on Bobo’s poisoned champagne. Aggressive and just generally angry, and there’s no way Nicole is going to leave this girl with him.

“I was actually asking her,” Nicole says, still politely, but lets just a little bit of heat into her tone. She extends a hand to the girl, still talking. “Because it would seem that maybe she has another opinion on this situation?”

The girl takes Nicole’s hand, allowing Nicole to ease her around the guy’s side and under his arm. She’s a little pale, and wobbling on unsteady legs, and Nicole smiles kindly at her. “Come on, let’s get you a glass of water.”

“Hey, where the fuck do you think you’re going?” the guy spits, pushing away from the wall and following the two through the crowd. “HEY! Hey, I’m talking to you, bitch!”

Nicole’s never liked that word, and she’s had it hurled at her far too often. Anger flushes her cheeks, and she whips around just in time to see the guy’s fist flying towards her face. It hits in a collusion of stars behind her eyes and she’s on the floor before she’s even truly aware of what has happened. The girl screams in shock, stumbling away, and suddenly the crowd of people part around them. The guy is wide-eyed, looking like he can’t quite believe what he just did, but Nicole’s rage flares and she’s on her feet and she _decks_ him.

Her knuckles scream in pain and she swears, shaking her hand out. The guy crashes backwards into a table, sending beer sloshing onto the table, but Nicole doesn’t give him a chance to gather his bearings before she’s spinning him around, pinning an arm against his back. The bar hushes, watching as he struggles. She wrenches his arm up further, and he swears.

“Ow!”

“Apologize!”

“What?”

“Apologize!” Nicole applies more pressure on his arm, just shy of dislocating it.

“Okay, okay! Ow! Fuck! I’m sorry! Just let me go, okay?”

Nicole does, and he stumbles away, clutching his arm to his chest. He’s not meeting her eyes, cheeks flushed. “Geeze.”

Nicole doesn’t bother to stick around. She tosses a twenty-dollar tip into the jar on the bar and offers a hand to the girl. The girl hesitates for only a second before taking it, and they leave the stunned, silent bar behind.

♔

Afterward, Nicole sits in her squad car, staring with an empty gaze out the window. She prods at her cheek and winces, and she knows she’s going to get a magnificent purple bruise down her cheekbone. The punch missed her eye by sheer luck, but she can’t dredge up the emotions to be grateful.  Her knuckles throb in time with her heartbeat, already purpling and weeping blood where the skin split. She has a first aid kit tucked underneath the passenger seat of the car, but she doesn’t reach for it.

As soon as they had gotten out of the bar, the girl had thrown her arms around Nicole’s neck and thanked her, sounding near tears, and Nicole tries to feel something, but she can’t. She calls the girl an Uber then climbs into her own car and sits.

She can’t stop imagining Waverly.

_“Always have to be a hero, don’t you?”_ she’d say, a teasing lilt in her voice, hands cool and gentle against Nicole’s cheek. And Nicole would look up at her and smile, wrapping her arms around her girlfriend’s hips to pull her closer.

But Waverly’s not here. Waverly’s not sitting in the car beside her, she’s not waiting at the Homestead, Waverly is out of reach, and it’s killing her.

It’s a parasite, worming its way through Nicole, poisoning her slowly and steadily, and she’s suddenly so, so angry.

She slams her hands against the steering wheel, again and again, until her palms throb and redden, and only when she accidently hits the horn does she stop. She wraps her hands around the wheel and gasps for breath.

And then she bursts into tears.

It’s Waverly’s voice in her head and Waverly’s hands on her cheek, some combination of memory and imagination that breaks her. Nicole is angry and she’s tired and she’s scared, she’s so, so scared. She can’t admit that maybe, Waverly is too far out of their reach.

That maybe, they won’t be able to get her back.

Nicole needs to keep believing that Waverly can be saved. Because it already feels like some vital organ has been removed from her body with Waverly gone, and if they can’t get her back, Nicole isn’t sure what she’d do.

♔

_Hi, you’ve reached Waverly’s cellphone! Either I can’t come to the phone or someone broke it again, but leave a message and I’ll call you back as soon as I can!_

_Beeeeep_

_Hey, Waves. Nicole just got back from somewhere, and she looks like she got in a fight but she won’t tell me where. Can you imagine that? Nicole getting in a fight? She looks terrible though, and I think she broke one of her fingers. Serves her right, for causing trouble without me._

_I’ve been going through all your books, trying to find something to get you back. I haven’t had any luck so far, but it’s been slow going because these are so boring. But I’ll find something._

_We’ll get you back._

_I promise._

_I miss you, babygirl. I hope…_

_I hope you’re okay._

_*click*_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this last season of Wynonna Earp is over. Somehow. It feels like it's only been going a few weeks, but it went by so fast, and it was such a good season, and can we talk about that ending?? Thank god it got renewed, because if that was the ending of the series I don't think I'd be able to handle it. 
> 
> And I'd like to thank everyone who's commented and given kudos and bookmarked and subscribed and whatever else: you guys are awesome, and it seriously makes my day that you like this little fun side project of mine. You all are amazing. I'm going to try and get updates up a bit quicker, and I'm going to do as much writing over my days off as possible so hopefully I can go to an every other day posting schedule. I've got a pretty decent chunk of this fic written, and I'm going to try to bang out the rest today and tomorrow, so all I have to do is a quick run through and mild edits before posting the rest of the chapters (i did say it's my side project. Emphasis on mild for the edits). If this will work out or not remains to be seen, however, because work keeps me busy and up early.
> 
> Finally, you can always find me at twitter under @ainewrites. I'm not tweeting a whole lot right now, but I'm always up to chat (something needs to keep me awake on my morning bus rides to work). Or, if you're a fellow NaNo-er (because November fast approaches) you can find me on there as VintageTypewriter.


	4. I am the diamond glints on snow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this is the point where I start churning out chapters as fast as I can, because NaNoWriMo is almost here and I want to get this finished by then, PLUS I want to at least get a decent chunk written of another Wynonna Earp/Wayhaught fic before November. So will my weekend/evenings be spent writing frantically? Yes.
> 
> Should I be taking it a little easier on writing right before NaNo? Probably.

They were going to throw a party for her this year.

It was an idea born out of Wynonna’s guilt for missing so many birthdays combined with Nicole’s secret fondness for surprise parties, and they were going to take over Shorty’s and fill it with balloons and streamers and confetti and cake, and Waverly was going to love it.

It’s Waverly’s twenty-third birthday, and they were going to give her the best birthday party she’s ever had.

But she’s not here to celebrate it.

Wynonna is fully intending to drink an entire bottle of whiskey straight from the bottle and then possibly sit in the bathtub and cry for the rest of the night, but at promptly six o’clock, the doorbell rings. Wynonna is not surprised to find Nicole on the other side of it.

“You practically live here now, Haught,” Wynonna snaps, throwing open the door. “You don’t have to knock every damn time…”

She trails off when she sees what Nicole is holding. In one hand dangles a bag filled with quarts of sweet and sour soup and a jar of peanut butter, and in the other she balances a pastel pink cake box from Waverly’s favorite bakery. Nicole smiles a little and lifts up the box like an offering.

“I brought cake?”

Wynonna steps aside to let her in.

Nicole heads straight to the kitchen, sliding the cake box into the fridge and plopping the plastic bags down on the table before digging through the drawers to find a pot big enough for the soup. Wynonna flops down in a chair and watches her, dragging the bottle of whiskey on the table closer but not opening it yet.

“You didn’t have to do this.”

“I’m not doing this for you, Wynonna,” Nicole says, cracking open one of the several containers of soup. She dumps it into the pot and sets it on the stovetop. “I’m doing this for her.” She pauses, hesitating, a spoon in her hand. “But also, I didn’t want to be alone. I didn’t want you to be alone.”

Wynonna scoffs to hide how touched she is by the gesture, popping the top off the bottle and taking a swig. She offers it wordlessly to Nicole, who stares at the bottle for a long second, before pulling her keys out of her pocket. She carefully and deliberally sets them on top of the fridge, just far away from the edge that it would take some rooting to find them. Apparently satisfied, she takes the offered bottle and sips carefully, throat bobbing. She gasps, cheeks pink, and passes it back to Wynonna as she wipes her mouth with her other hand. Wynonna reclines, swinging her boots up onto the table, and quirks an eyebrow.

“So, Haught, what’s the plan?”

♔

The plan, as it turns out, is to get very, very drunk. They abandoned the table some time ago, and now sit on the floor, backs against the cupboards, passing a bottle between them. Half-eaten bowls of sweet and sour soup are sitting on the kitchen counter, long since gone cold, and the jar of peanut butter remains unopened. They both love Waverly, but neither of them can bring themselves to try her favorite combination, honoring her or no.

“Waverly is going to be living off this stuff when we get her back,” Wynonna says, taking a long swig from the bottle before passing it off to Nicole. “Why’d you buy so much?”

“I dunno.” Nicole shrugs, accepting the bottle but not taking a sip. She’s starting to slur her words a little, which Wynonna recognizes as her rapidly approaching very drunk, but she’s not yet begun to make wide, clumsy gestures, so Wynonna figures they still have a little while before they reach that point. “It made sense in the store.”

“She’ll be happy.”

“Yeah.” Nicole raises the bottle to her lips. “I miss her.”

It feels like a gut punch, those three words. Wynonna swipes the bottle from Nicole, ignoring her half-hearted protests, and chugs the last of the bottle. She gasps, nose and throat burning, but this is a burn she can handle. She’s used to this, used to the alcohol’s fire that will eventually, inevitably, be replaced by a hazy numbness. She tosses the empty bottle to the side, and it clatters but doesn’t break.

“Hey,” Nicole protests, “I’m not cleanin’ up broken glass.”

Her usually faint, barely noticeable accent is bleeding through, and Wynonna has a sudden flashback to the last time both she and Nicole were drunk. It was over a year ago, on the floor of Nedley’s office, an open case file in front of them. Back before Nicole and Waverly were dating, back before…everything, really. Back before Wynonna’s entire world went to shit, back before revealed secrets and possessions and newborn daughters, back when Waverly was still here, and would always be here.

She might not always be here.

Wynonna can’t handle the thought, can’t let herself think that Waverly’s out of reach.

“What are you going to do, when we get her back?”

“Lots of things,” Nicole murmurs, gaze distant. “I’m gonna to take her to the city and get us a table at a fancy restaurant and then maybe see a movie afterwards. I haven’t seen a movie in the theater in ages, not since I moved here.”

“That sounds nice.”

“Mm. We’ll get ice cream too, even though it’s too cold for ice cream, because she loves ice cream and we don’t have an ice cream shop in town. And then…then we’re gonna walk along the river, and I’m gonna ask her to marry me.”

Wynonna laughs, but when she turns to face her drinking buddy, Nicole’s face is deadly serious.

“Really?”

Nicole nods. She unsteadily crawls over to where her jacket is hanging over the back of a chair and roots around in the pockets, before pulling out a small, black velvet box. She passes it off to Wynonna before collapsing back against the cabinets.

Wynonna opens it. In the box a ring is nestled amongst a soft white pillow. A gold band, with a round, opalescent stone held in the center and two tiny diamonds on either side. It’s minimal and delicate, and so clearly intended for Waverly that Wynonna nearly cries.

“It’s a moonstone,” Nicole says. “In the center. And both it and the diamonds are ethically sourced. And it’s handmade. I got it off Etsy.”

“That’s the most fucking hipster thing I’ve ever heard.” Wynonna carefully closes the box and hands it back to Nicole, who cradles it in both hands. “Waverly will love it.”

“I’ve been carryin’ it around for…about eight months, now?” Nicole runs a thumb over the top of the box, looking lost in thought. “But there wasn’t the right time to give it to her.”

“Now, Haught, I know we’re not friends-“

Nicole scoffs.

“-but I’ll let you marry my sister.”

Nicole turns to level Wynonna a _look_ , her expression as deeply disappointed as her very drunk state allows. “You don’t _own_ her, Wynonna, we don’t need your permission.”

“I know that,” Wynonna snaps. “But do you think I would really have ever let Champ marry her if you hadn’t come along?”

Nicole’s nose wrinkles at the mention of Waverly’s ex. “He didn’t deserve her.”

“I would have hit him with my car if he had asked her to marry him.”

“I would have helped you bury the body.”

“Good, because Champ sucked.”

“He _sucked_.” Nicole laughs, leaning her head back. “He didn’t deserve her.” She sighs, closing her eyes. “I don’t think I deserve her either, though, sometimes.”

“No one deserves her. I don’t deserve to have her as a sister. She’s…she’s our angel.”

“Well, then…” Nicole pulls herself up to the counter to snag another bottle and two glasses. She fills each glass with an unsteady hand, giving one to Wynonna and keeping one for herself. She raises a glass in a toast, hand shaking ever so slightly.

“To Waverly Earp, our angel.”

“To Waverly,” Wynonna echoes, trying to ignore the developing lump in her throat. “Happy birthday, baby girl. We’ll get you back.”

♔

Later, after Nicole’s passed out on the couch and Wynonna’s not quite _drunk_ anymore but definitely not sober either, she flops down onto Waverly’s bed and stares at the sloped ceiling. This used to be Willa’s room, back when they were kids, but Waverly had taken it over. She and Wynonna had burnt the stuff Willa had left behind, but still, Wynonna can feel the ghost of both sisters in this room.

Two sisters taken, two sisters stolen, two sisters she couldn’t save.

It’s her fears coming to life, again and again. She tries so hard to protect everyone, would give her life in a heartbeat for any of the people that make up her strange, mismatched little family. And yet, she _loses_ people, over and over and _over_.

Willa, shot with Peacemaker, the gun that was supposed to be hers.

Alice, not dead, still alive, but so desperately out of reach.

Dolls, who gave his life to save them, who didn’t tell her he was dying.

Doc, who may not be dead, but every time she thinks of him, she thinks of his empty, emotionless eyes, his shirt still splattered with Charlie’s blood, and she knows the Doc she called family is gone.

And Waverly, their angel, their beating heart, taken from them, even as they fought, even as they screamed.

Wynonna can feel their ghosts. They hang over her, ever watchful, unescapable.

She couldn’t save them.

She lies on Waverly’s bed, breathes in the familiar scents of Waverly’s perfume and the vanilla candle she always had burning, and she doesn’t cry.

She couldn’t save them.

But she’ll save Waverly.

She swears to every single fucking god out there that she will set fire to the entirety of Purgatory, that she’ll burn down Heaven itself, if it means she gets Waverly home.

 

♔

_Hi, you’ve reached Waverly’s cellphone! Either I can’t come to the phone or someone broke it again, but leave a message and I’ll call you back as soon as I can!_

_Beeeeep_

_Happy birthday, babygirl._

_It’s actually not your birthday anymore. I’m a terrible sister, aren’t I? Even when I remember your birthday, I forget to actually wish you happy birthday. But it’s like 2AM, and it’s no longer your birthday._

_Nicole came over. I think she bought all the sweet and sour soup in Purgatory. You’ll be happy when you get home._

_And…And Waves, she’s going to marry you. I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but she has a ring. She showed me. She’s going to take you on a disgustingly romantic date and she’s going to ask you to marry her. So…so don’t give up on us yet. We’re fighting for you. We’ll get you back._

_Your girl is waiting._

_We’re all waiting._

_Happy birthday, Waverly._

_*click*_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, you can find me on twitter as @ainewrites!


	5. I am the sunlight on ripened grain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guys, thank you so much for all your comments and kudos and bookmarks and subscriptions and everything. This started out as my angsty little side project to get me in the habit of writing every day before NaNoWriMo, and yet you are reading it and actually seem to like it.
> 
> It's amazing and it truly makes my day.

Nicole dreams of Waverly dressed in white.

Sometimes she’s in a gown, trailing lace for feet behind her, standing under an alter of white roses. Not in a church, because neither of them have any particular belief in God or gods, but in some grand hall, with huge windows and high ceilings, and a pathway lined with flower petals.

Sometimes, she’s in a white sundress, and they’re standing on the steps of the City Hall, joined by other couples, all waiting for their turn to be called, their closest friends and family by their sides.

Sometimes she’s on a tropical beach, barefoot and wind coaxing her hair into a wild tangle, sometimes she’s under a canopy of trees, bathed with soft green light, sometimes she’s in a music hall with a pianist playing the most beautiful version of the wedding march Nicole’s ever heard and sometimes she’s in the middle of an overgrown vineyard and sometimes she’s here, on the Homestead, under an open, star-filled sky.

Nicole dreams of marrying Waverly a thousand different ways under a thousand different skies, but she always wakes up, back aching from sleeping on the Homestead couch and Waverly still gone.

Tonight, though, either in the latest hours of the night or the earliest hours of the morning, exhaustion doesn’t drag Nicole back under. She can’t hear Wynonna, but if she cranes her neck she can see through the open door of Wynonna’s bedroom, and she knows that the bed is empty. She hopes Wynonna isn’t drunk and wandering the Homestead property, but she can’t gather enough strength to actually get off the couch and go check.

She’s hit hangover, a headache pulsing behind her temple, hinting at the full-on migraine it’s sure to become. She can’t bring herself to care. She always has a headache, now, her newfound lifestyle of living off caffeine and bursts of sleep not the healthiest she’s ever had. But the deep, burning desire to see Waverly again overwhelms all other senses, an aching need that wraps barbed wire tendrils around her.

Nicole’s never really believed in the idea of soulmates. It’s a nice idea, sure, but she doesn’t really think that there’s only one person out there for everyone. She thinks that every relationship you have is important, is entangled with your history and shapes who you are, and to call one of possibly many of these partners your soulmate ignores that in her opinion. Saying you were always destined to meet and to love one specific person takes the choice out of it, and love is a choice as much as it is an instinct.

But.

But if she believed in soulmates, she thinks Waverly would be hers.

She remembers life before Purgatory and before the Earps, of course she does. Back when life was a lot less exciting, and there was a lot less of running for her life. But she can’t quite remember what it was like before this feeling she gets every time she thinks of Waverly. She doesn’t get the butterflies anymore, doesn’t get the feeling of nervousness that comes with a crush or a new girlfriend.

Instead, being with Waverly makes her feel soft and quiet, like she’s curled up under all of Waverly’s blankets plus the bonus blanket, and when she tries to remember not feeling like that at the thought of her girlfriend, she can’t.

No wonder it feels like some vastly important piece has been taken from her life.

She thinks that she fell in love with Waverly the moment she came rushing into the sheriff station, grabbed Nicole by the coat and yanked her into Nedley’s office. She had a crush on Waverly since that first day she came into Shorty’s, but she fell in love with Waverly in a rush that day. With Waverly’s fire and her heart, an entire storm of a being bottled into a human’s small body.

She knew she was going to marry Waverly the moment she stood in a formal dress, desperate and angry, facing down the older sister she was so afraid of for Nicole.

Nicole remembers her past without Waverly. But she can’t see a future without her.

 

♔

Four months and two days before Waverly is taken, she and Nicole walk arm and arm back from the bar.

Nicole can’t remember now why they were at Shorty’s. Wynonna wasn’t there, neither was Doc; they were probably back at the Homestead, cooped up in the barn and beating the shit out each other in the name of “training”. But Dolls was there, and Jeremy, and they sat at the bar and drank and laughed and for a while, they were just four friends sitting at a bar, and the monsters and the revenants and the rising demon king were far from their minds.

Afterwards, though, Dolls and Jeremy both left in favor of their BBD paid for hotel rooms, and both Nicole and Waverly were a little too tipsy to be driving Waverly’s truck back to the Homestead, so they bundle up as best they can and brave the snow and the cold to walk to Nicole’s house.

It's the first true snowfall of the year, and although Purgatory never truly gets _hot,_ the last warmth of summer has truly been chased away by a mid-Autumn chill. They walk pressed together, seeking out body heat like penguins, their clothing more suitable for a night of poker and beer at the bar than for a mile walk past midnight. But Waverly hangs on Nicole’s arm, pink-cheeked and laughing, and Nicole can’t really feel the cold. She presses closer to her girlfriend anyways, and they stumble a little over each other, giggling.

“So,” Waverly says cheerfully, “I guess we could call this the congratulations, you’re divorced party?”

Nicole laughs and slips a little on the ice. “I guess so, yeah.” Her divorce papers have finally come through, after months of delays that were the fault of neither her nor Shae. She’s no longer married, although if she’s being honest, she never really _felt_ married in the first place.

“What was she like? Shae?”

It isn’t a barbed question. There’s nothing but curiosity behind Waverly’s words, a genuine desire to know. So, Nicole answers.

“She was nice, and smart, and really pretty,” she says, shrugging. “And we were dating- casually, if I’m being honest -and we decided to go to Vegas because a bunch of other rock climbers were getting together. We did a really good climb and went to a really good concert, and then got drunk.”

Waverly tips her head back to look up at Nicole, smiling, and it’s so cute Nicole can barely breathe. “And you got married?”

Nicole shrugs again. “The high of a great climb and great concert combined with marriage legalization made us make a split-second decision. We tried for a while once we sobered up and come down from the post climb and concert high, but I think we both knew we weren’t supposed to ever go further than a causal relationship.

“And by the time we realized, it was too late to get the marriage annulled, but the idea of going through a divorce was…scary. And she was almost done with medical school and I had just been accepted into the police academy, so we just went our separate ways. Figured we’d deal with it later.”

“Do you regret it?”

“No,” Nicole says, without taking time to consider. It surprises her a little, how sure she is of that answer.  But she doesn’t. Shae is part of her past, woven into her history, and she’s never going to regret that, or regret her. Sure, they probably shouldn’t have gotten married. They were two girls, clinging to the last dregs of early-twenties irresponsibility before moving on into official adulthood, and a drunk Vegas wedding is probably not going to be one that sticks anyways.

But without it, she doesn’t think that she’d truly be able to understand how different being with Waverly feels. Sure, Nicole and Shae had fun, but _fun_ isn’t a good basis for a marriage. She and Shae were a good match; both were athletic and kind and stubborn, but they were too similar. There weren’t any fights, weren’t any major issues, but they just kind of…fizzled out.

With Waverly, though, she feels as if a piece has snapped into place. They’re not perfect, they’re nowhere near perfect. They argue and they misunderstand but they always come out the other side stronger. Nicole’s relationship with Shae was always firmly based in the past, on their past experiences together. Her relationship with Waverly is about the future, and the lives they’re going to have together.

The two of them turn up Nicole’s street. She’d forgotten to turn the lamp off before leaving, so her window was lit with a warm glow, beaconing them forward amongst the row of dark houses. They stomp up her front path, boots crunching in the snow, and Nicole untangles herself from Waverly long enough to unlock the door.

Her house was warm, and they both start the lengthy process of removing their winter gear. Calamity Jane watches them from her perch on the arm of Nicole’s couch, eyes half-lidded with the sort of disinterest only a cat can convey. Waverly wanders over and scratches the cat’s ears, who closes her eyes and gives a soft _mrrp_ of contentment.

“Do you want anything?” Nicole asks, pulling off her hat and shaking snow from her hair. “Tea? I might have hot chocolate somewhere around here, too.”

“Yes,” Waverly says, reaching out to snag Nicole’s arm as she walks past. She gently pushes Nicole down onto the couch and climbs onto her lap, straddling her legs. “I do want something.”

Nicole raises an eyebrow, her smirk teasing. “I don’t think this is a very efficient way of making tea.”

Waverly doesn’t answer, just kisses her, heavy and slow, tangling her hands into Nicole’s hair. Nicole sighs softly against Waverly’s lips, curling her hands around Waverly’s hips. One of her hands slides under Waverly’s shirt and Waverly yelps, flinching away.

“Your hands are _freezing_ ,” she says, laughing, reaching down to wrap her own, warm hands around Nicole’s. She rests her head against Nicole’s, and Nicole breathes in her snow-chilled scent. She gently removes her hands from Waverly’s, wraps her arms around her waist and flips them, Waverly squeaking in surprise. Now Nicole is standing over Waverly, and Waverly is sitting on the couch, smiling up at her girlfriend. Wordlessly, Nicole offers her hands, and Waverly takes them and allows Nicole to pull her to her feet. She wraps her arm around Waverly’s shoulders and Waverly wraps hers around Nicole’s waist, and, both giggling a little as they stumble, begin the climb up the stairs, Nicole’s room waiting at the top.

♔

When Nicole wakes up again, the morning after Waverly’s birthday, the Homestead is bathed in a cool, early-morning light, and Wynonna is sitting at the kitchen table, dark bags under her eyes and a coffee cup in her hands. Nicole groans as she sits up, back popping. She presses the palms of her hands into the ache, squinting in the sunlight.

“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty,” Wynonna snarks from the table, and Nicole can already tell that she’s in a dark mood, so she doesn’t respond. The call of a hot shower and a cup of coffee before heading into work is a temptation she can’t resist, and to get in a fight with Wynonna at 7:30 in the morning is not the start of a good day.

Not that any day’s been truly good, lately.

She digs up one of the changes of clothes she has stashed and locks the bathroom door out of habit rather than genuine need, stripping down before stepping into the hot spray. She leans against the shower wall and closes her eyes, the memories of her dreams from the night before wispy and indistinct, but still enough to nearly make her cry.

She feels useless. She’s so tired of feeling useless. She’s not magic, she doesn’t have a destiny, she’s just a cop in a tiny town and she’s so fucking _useless_.

She punches the wall, and the jolt of pain that shoots up her arm is enough to make the anger vanish as quickly as it appeared. She slides down, sits on the floor of the bathtub, cradling her throbbing hand to her chest. She closes her eyes, and lets the sound of the water drown everything else out. 

 _Useless_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, you can find me on twitter at @ainewrites, and since I seem to talk so much about NaNoWriMo in the chapter notes, you can find me there under VintageTypewriter.


	6. I am the gentle autumn rain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW/TW for blood magic  
> I'll recap the chapter in the notes at the end if you want to skip over.

Two months and six days after Waverly is taken, Wynonna finds the book.

It’s tucked in the very back of the furthest bookshelf in the BBD offices, and by coincidence or design, Wynonna doesn’t know. It looks innocent enough, like all of Waverly’s other books she collects in rare bookshops and from online sellers; bound in soft brown leather, pages yellowing and brittle beneath Wynonna’s fingers. But it’s different, this book.

She can feel it, the darkness that the pages hold, a strange sort of thrum in her hands, almost as if the book has a quiet, steady heartbeat.

Wynonna’s never been drawn to the dark. But to get Waverly back…she’ll do anything.

♔

She doesn’t tell Nicole. She knows what Nicole’s reaction would be to find out some of the things Wynonna is trying. The book’s spells are not ones written for those that exist in the light; this book is deep and dark and ancient, and some of the things it holds within it makes Wynonna sick to her stomach.

But still, she tries.

For Waverly, she tries.

She chants in a language she doesn’t understand, she appeals to gods so ancient everyone has forgotten their names, she whispers curses in the darkest hours of the night. She tries and she tries and she tries, but magic doesn’t run through her veins like it does some, and these spells were not intended for her.

But magic can be forced.

At first, it’s small.

She had shied away from the spells calling for blood at first, instead choosing the ones that asked for less pain. Hair and fingernail clippings and spit, simple and painless to give. Even the ones that asked for death were easy enough. Mousetraps are sprinkled throughout the building, and while it’s extremely gross, they’re not difficult to raid of their small, furry corpses.

Nothing works. She starts joining Nicole on her nightly treks through the forest, hoping that the garden will appear, that her spell will have done something, but nothing ever works.

So, she turns to blood.

The first spell she tries doesn’t call for much. She pricks herself with the sharp end of a safety pin she found in Jeremy’s desk, the sting not much worse than a bug bite, and she has to squeeze her thumb to cause the blood to pool. Gritting her teeth, she digs in her fingernail until enough blood wells to drip down, falling into the flame of the candle she had placed in the middle of the dark floor. The flame sputters and glows blue for a single second, the crimson of her blood turning the melted wax a pale pink.

She closes her eyes, whispering the spell under her breath, praying to whatever ancient, angry god this spell is directed towards.

But nothing happens.

So she tries another. And another. She pricks every single one of her fingers, but nothing happens.

Wynonna screams in rage. She kicks over the candle, sending melted wax splattering across the floor. She shoves all the papers off Jeremy’s desk and throws the book across the room and screams, cursing the very gods she is hoping will help her.

And then, she finds the switchblade.

She had wrestled it away from a revenant during the earlier days of Waverly’s absence, when she had been going out and picking fights every night just to try and drown the feeling of uselessness away. Nicole had promptly taken it from her, stating that she didn’t want Wynonna to get arrested for something as stupid as having an illegal weapon on her, and Wynonna didn’t know what she had done with it after that.

Apparently, she’d stuck it here, in Jeremy’s desk.

Wynonna picks it up, turns it over in her hands. It’s heavier than you would expect by looking at it, the black handle smooth and fitting in her hand like she was meant to hold it. She thumbs the button. The blade flips out smoothly, gleaming and sharp, and Wynonna stares at it for a long, long moment.

Then she picks up the candle, relights it, and presses the blade into the skin of her hand.

Blood wells instantly, following the diagonal slice across her palm, starting in the soft skin between her thumb and her pointer finger, ending at nearly her wrist. The candle hisses and sputters as the blood starts to drip, and Wynonna repeats the spell.

Nothing happens.

So she does it again. And again.

She pours every bit of frustration, of fear, of anger into her voice, directs it all at the candle as blood drips down her palm, down her wrist, splattering the floor, pooling in the candle, hot against her skin, the smell of iron permeating the room.

_And nothing happens_.

She raises the switchblade, because she will cut off her _entire fucking hand_ if she has to, and the door slams open.

“Wynonna!”

Nicole is on her immedietely, wrestling the knife away from Wynonna, who hisses like an animal, squinting her eyes against the light that comes streaming in through the open door. Nicole holds the bloody knife in one hand, looking at the Earp in horror, and Wynonna, sprawled on the floor, blinks up at her.

“Wynonna,” Nicole says again, this time so sadly that Wynonna almost cries. “What the _hell_ were you thinking?”

“That it would get her back,” Wynonna answers, jerking her head at the book still open on the floor, Nicole, stooping, picks it up, and her eyebrows shoot up. “You’ve been trying _reanimation spells_? Wynonna, we want her back, but not as a zombie!”

“We’ve tried everything else!” Wynonna snaps, but the fight is quickly draining out of her. The pain is flooding in, fire licking across her palm, and she cradles it to her chest, not caring that she’s smearing blood across her shirt. “What else are we supposed to do, Nicole?”

Nicole crouches down, and, gently, carefully, as if Wynonna is an injured dog, takes Wynonna’s still-bleeding hand in her own. She turns it over to examine the cut, and Wynonna hisses and bites back the urge to snatch it away as it causes a flare of pain.

“Not this,” Nicole says softly. And then, as if a switch was flipped, her professional demeanor crashes over her. She pulls her scarf from around her neck and begins wrapping it around Wynonna’s hand. “We need to stop the bleeding. I know Dolls kept a first aid kit around here somewhere, I’m going to go find it. Keep pressure on this, okay?” She pushes herself up, and Wynonna watches as she begins to sort through the room’s cupboards.

“I thought it might bring her back.” Wynonna knows Nicole knows why, but she doesn’t think she can handle the sad way Nicole is looking at her. “I need her back, Nicole.”

“I know, Wynonna. I know.”

♔

Wynonna sits in Jeremy’s chair, her hand palm up on his desk. Nicole pulls on a pair of gloves and carefully turns Wynonna’s hand from side to side.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Haught?” Wynonna asks, looking a little apprehensively at the small selection of medical tools Nicole had laid out on a towel.

“I took an EMT training class last summer,” is Nicole’s answer as she soaks a piece of gauze in rubbing alcohol. “I figured I’d need to know some sort of advanced first aid eventually.” She looks up at Wynonna with a warning of “this will sting.”

And it does. Like a bitch.

“Ow! Jesus, Haught! Are you trying to scrub my skin off?” Wynonna clenches her teeth against the urge to yank her hand away, but Nicole doesn’t answer, just raises an eyebrow and keeps cleaning the bloody gash. Eventually she sits back and sighs.

“You need stitches. I can bandage this up and drive you to the ER- “

“No.”

“-or I could do it here, but I don’t have any anesthetic.”

“I’m not going to the ER,” Wynonna says. All her memories of the Purgatory hospital are related to trauma of some sort; Waverly almost dying of fever at four years old because Daddy had refused to take her to the doctor, Nicole almost dying after being bitten by the Widows, and her own experience, of Two-Faced Jack. After that, after being trapped in the hospital bed while a revenant prepares to vivisect her, any thought of the hospital causes chills to run down her spine and her stomach to churn. “Just do it here.”

“It’ll hurt,” Nicole warns. “I have some pain medication, but that won’t kick in for a while, and it wouldn’t be enough to really effect being stitched up, either.”

Wynonna leans back in her chair. “Just give me- “

“No whiskey,” Nicole says firmly. “It can act as a blood thinner and I don’t want to get Waverly back only to explain that you bled out on the floor in front of me.”

Wynonna sighs. “Fine. Just do it then.”

Nicole stares at her for several long moments, and then gives a reluctant nod. “Okay.” She presses two small white pills into Wynonna’s palm, who swallows them dry, and gives Nicole a quick jerking nod.

Nicole picks up the suture needle, warns Wynonna not to move, and starts.

Wynonna hisses, digging the fingernails of her other hand into the arm of her chair. Nicole mutters soft apologies on her breath, concentrating on the quick, clean movements of her fingers. Wynonna closes her eyes, biting her tongue until she tastes blood, cursing wildly in her head. She feels like if she opens her mouth, she’s going to throw up.

After what feels like several eternities but is probably only a couple of minutes, Nicole neatly knots and trims the last stitch, setting the scissors and the needle aside to wrap up Wynonna’s hand.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Wynonna spits, yanking her hand away to cradle it as soon as Nicole is done. Nicole just raises an eyebrow, stripping off her bloody gloves.

“I warned you.” Nicole flops down in another chair, sighing. “And it serves you right. I spent all night looking for you, and I find you covered in your own blood in the middle of a dark room with a book of black magic…Wynonna, you can’t _do that_. I know you like to pretend you don’t like me, but I care about you.”

Wynonna leans back in her chair, spinning back and forth, scoffing. “You became family months ago, Haught. Don’t pretend like you don’t know.”

Nicole reaches over the table to grab Wynonna’s hand. She freezes, unused to this sort of casual contact from anyone but Waverly.

“Wynonna, promise me, if we don’t get her back…don’t vanish on me, okay? I can’t…I wouldn’t be able to survive losing both of you.”

Wynonna never expected this, when she came back to Purgatory those few years ago. That she would get…this. Her relationship with family has always been uneasy; a father who shifted between not caring and enraged, an absent mother, a dead older sister, an aunt and uncle who turned her over to foster care rather than try and help their traumatized, grieving niece. But against all odds, she got the sort of family she never expected she’d ever have. Mismatched and a little disjointed, and missing too many people now, but it would take every single one of those ancient gods to tear her away from it now.

“If I leave, I’m taking you with me,” she says, and she hopes that Nicole can hear all the unsaid things in it. Judging by the way her eyes well up, she does.

“I love you too, Wynonna.”

Wynonna scoffs, but squeezes Nicole’s hand before pulling away. She examines the neat bandaging on her hand, the pain meds kicking in just enough to turn the heavy throb into something a bit milder. “It’s been too long. We need to get a new plan.”

“We could find the Iron Witch,” Nicole suggests. “She’s vanished from her house, but I don’t think she can leave the triangle.”

Wynonna shakes her head. “I tried. I tracked her as far as I could, but she’s vanished.”

“Maybe a revenant knows something?”

“Remember when I was getting in bar fights every night? What did you think was leading up to those bar fights?”

Nicole sighs, pushing her palms into her eyes. Wynonna spins once in her chair, but the motion makes her dizzy (probably from the blood loss) so she stops.

“I feel like we’re missing something,” Nicole says, not looking up. “Something obvious.”

“You are.”

Both Wynonna and Nicole whip around at the new voice (the room tilting a little for Wynonna at the too-quick movement), both of them gawking at the woman leaning, arms crossed, against the doorframe. She cocks an eyebrow and smirks, clearly finding their shock amusing.

“I heard about your sister,” Kevin says, “And I came to help you get her back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter recap:  
> Wynonna finds one of Waverly's spellbooks, one that happens to be full of dark magic. She avoids using the ones that call for blood magic at first, but eventually does it. She starts small and eventually builds up as the spells call for more and more blood. Nicole finds her in the BBD offices and chews her out before sewing up her cut. They get all mushy for a minute before talking about other opinions to get Waverly back, but they've already tried all of them, and the chapter closes with Kevin showing up in the offices. 
> 
> AND, we've reached the official halfway point of this novel! Hopefully chapters will start coming quicker now, because I really really am trying to get this finished before NaNo, and I only have two more chapters to write, I just have to actually edit the rest. This will hopefully get done today and tomorrow, because these are my days off, and it's GeekGirlCon this weekend so I'll be spending my free time after work on friday trying to finish my cosplays. 
> 
> But, if you want to chat, or if you're going to be at GGC and want to talk about Wynonna Earp and fanfic, come and yell at me on Twitter! You can find me at @ainewrites. I don't tweet a whole lot, but I check it pretty often!


	7. when you awaken in the morning's hush

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been so long since the last update! Working full time plus NaNoWriMo plus just a generally busy schedule did not leave a lot of downtime for me to work on this, and what downtime I had I mostly spent sleeping tbh. 
> 
> But NaNo is over, I won, and I managed to write a decent chuck of my apocalypse sort-of AU so once I finish posting this fic, that will probably go up pretty quick.

“What the fuck took you so long?” Wynonna spits, rising up as if to fight the woman who had suddenly appeared. Nicole lunges forward to keep her from charging Kevin, because Wynonna punching someone would definitely open up the stitches Nicole had just so carefully applied.

Kevin seems unconcerned. She wanders the room, opening cupboards and desk drawers. Everything about her screams a casual disinterest, which both interests and infuriates Nicole. She’d been filled in on what had happened with Kevin in bits and pieces, and she doesn’t really understand most of it, but what she does understand is that this woman _knows_. About revenants and demons and the rest of the more unsettling folks that inhabit the triangle. And Nicole gets the strangest feeling, like a chill crawling down her spine when the two make eye contact, that while Kevin may look human, she is actually something far more terrible.

Wynonna is practically vibrating with rage under Nicole’s hands, her face turning red, and Nicole considers it a minor miracle that she hasn’t had to physically pin Wynonna in her seat yet. Kevin finds a package of cookies in a drawer and sits down in Waverly’s chair. Wynonna tenses up further, and Nicole tightens her grip on Wynonna’s shoulder.

“My coworkers seem to think that I should leave you to your own devices,” Kevin says, propping her feet up on the edge of Waverly’s desk, nose wrinkling in annoyance. “But it seems at the rate you’re going, you’re more likely to kill yourself trying, and we still need an heir, despite what they think.” She takes a bite of the cookie and raises her eyebrow, clearly waiting for a response.

“What the _fuck_ \- “ Wynonna says again, but Nicole talks over her.

“You said we were missing something obvious,” Nicole says, ignoring Wynonna’s glare. “But I don’t think we have. We’ve combed every inch of those woods, tried to track down everyone who might have information on the garden, and we’ve found nothing.”

“The garden requires an angel,” Kevin says with a lazy gesture. “In this case, it seemed to decide that a half-angel was good enough. But there’s another angel running around that you seem to have forgotten”

Nicole’s eyebrows knit, and she runs down the list of supernatural beings of Purgatory in her head. “Juan Carlo? But he died almost a year ago…”

“No,” Wynonna whispers, face clearing in realization. “Not Juan Carlo. Julian. She’s talking about Julian.”

Oh.

 _Oh_.

Nicole shakes her head. “I can’t believe we didn’t think of that!” Somehow, in everything that’s happened, Waverly’s Heavenly parentage had just…slipped from her mind. She knew that Waverly was half angel and that’s why she was taken, but for some reason she’d never stopped to consider that there is another angel out there. A missing angel, sure, but they’ve found missing things before.

“It doesn’t guarantee that he will be willing to help, of course.” Kevin picks up one of the books on Waverly’s desk and begins flipping through it, which is apparently the last straw for Wynonna. She shrugs Nicole’s hand off her shoulder and stalks over to snatch the book from Kevin’s hands. She places it back gently on the pile, tilting it just so. Nicole flinches, expecting Kevin’s reaction to be unfriendly, but she just smirks. “It seems, however, you need all the help you can get.”

Nicole can hear the insult behind the seemingly innocent words and bristles, but Wynonna plants both her hands on Waverly’s desk, leaning forward to stare down at their supposed newfound ally.

“So, Kevin, tell us where he is.”

“I don’t know where he is.”

“Didn’t you say you were an Ambassador? Can’t you like, snap your fingers and poof! There he is!” Wynonna snaps her fingers, and Kevin leans back in her chair, crossing her arms.

“It doesn’t work like that,” she says, irritation bleeding through. “We watch, yes, but my powers are limited, and are no match to an angel’s that doesn’t want to be found. I certainly can’t _teleport_ him here, like some kind of wizard.”

“But you can tell us something?”

This directs the Ambassador’s attention to Nicole, who gives her an appraising look.

“The survivor,” Kevin muses, and it takes everything Nicole has not to squirm under her piercing gaze. “A mortal, but linked to Bulshar through tragedy, and therefor to the garden by association.” She laughs. “Yes, this will be interesting.”

“Hey!” Wynonna waves a hand in front of Kevin’s face. “Focus! You know something that can help us get Waverly back.”

Kevin pushes Wynonna’s hand away and gets out of her chair, something almost feline in her fluid movements. “In my line of work, there are rules. Our entire existence is to keep the world in balance, and to give too much information…” she holds out her hands, palms up. “…would throw that balance off.” Her hands tilt, mimicking the addition of weight. “However, you two are running around, causing havoc, causing that balance to wildly swing.” She drops her hands. “You are both royal pains in my ass at the moment, and the sooner this mess is cleaned up, the sooner you are out of my hair.”

“Are you allergic to answering questions?”

Kevin raises an eyebrow at Wynonna, giving her (and her leather pants) a once-over. “Are you allergic to sensible clothing?”

“Says the woman in the black velvet suit.”

“Guys,” Nicole breaks in, “Waverly. This is about Waverly.”

Wynonna instantly looks ashamed, her glare dropping away. Kevin looks as indifferent as always.

“I am limited in what I can tell you,” Kevin explains, pulling a pair of car keys from her pocket. “But I can nudge you in the right direction.”

“So nudge us,” Wynonna snaps, her already barely-there patience clearly wearing thin.

“Please,” Nicole adds, and for the first time, hope flares in her chest, a tiny, flickering candle flame, and she hopes, she really, really hopes, that it will continue to grow.

♔

Kate is the first thing Nicole notices when she pulls up to the Earp Homestead.

The vampire is sitting on the porch table, her ever-present deck of tarot cards in front of her, seemingly totally and utterly at ease. Wynonna slams the door of her truck and stalks up the steps and directly into the Homestead, ignoring Kate on the porch, slamming the door behind her. Kevin follows her inside, looking mildly amused, and only Nicole stops in front of the vampire.

“I thought you left town,” she says, and Kate smiles, flipping over a card.

“I did, for a while.” She examines the three cards in front of her, nods to herself, and tucks them neatly back into the deck. “But a girl can only stay away for so long.”

Nicole flops down into the chair opposite her. “You heard about Waverly.”

“I did.” Kate, humming quietly to herself, shuffles the deck with quick, easy movements. “And while I’m sorry to hear about her abduction, she is not the only reason I’m back.”

“Doc.”

“Yes.” Kate fans the tarot cards out in front of her, selecting one, two, three from the deck. “I heard of John Henry’s… _incident_ with the fireman.”

Nicole shudders, the memory rushing back over her. Of Doc, the man she had once trusted with her life kneeling over the silent, still body of Charlie, blood dripping down his face, staining his shirt, staining the snow beneath them crimson. She runs a hand up her arm, suddenly cold.

“I wish I could help, but I haven’t seen him since then.”

It’s not strictly true, because Nicole was in the Homestead kitchen the night that Doc showed up at the door, sat frozen throughout the entire argument, feeling like she shouldn’t be listening and yet unable to tear herself away. Wynonna had come in afterwards, flopped into the chair across from Nicole and knocked down an entire glass of whiskey, her face a blank, emotionless mask. Nicole hadn’t said anything. Wynonna hadn’t said anything. Neither of them were quite sure how to comfort the other.

The door of the front porch opens and Wynonna comes back out, scowling.

“Why can’t supernatural things ever give a straight fucking answer? Everything is in riddles and ‘oh, I think you know the answer’,” she complains, leaning against the porch banister with her arms crossed. She gives Kate a once-over, raising an eyebrow.

“You’re back.”

“I’m back,” Kate says, smiling, leaning forward to rest her chin on a hand in one smooth, elegant motion. “And I believe I have you to thank as to why.”

Both Wynonna and Nicole blink at her, and Kate smiles, showing just a hint of fang. “You see, John Henry and I are linked. I was the one who turned him, my poison running through his veins, binding our souls together, just as I was linked to the vampire who turned me. Which means I felt it when it happened.”

“When…what happened?” Nicole asks, and shock flits across Kate’s face.

“You…you don’t know?”

“I can answer that,” Kevin says. She’s leaning in the doorway, looking faintly amused. “I think we can safely say no.”

“Okay, we don’t know, so will someone please actually tell us instead of just gloating about the fact you have information we don’t?” Wynonna looks between the two women, glaring. “I’m so fucking tired-“

“John Henry is human again,” Kate says, and Nicole chokes. Wynonna cuts herself off midsentence, eyes growing wide.

“ _What_?” 

“How is that possible?” Nicole shakes her head, as if trying to get the information to make sense, to line up in her head. “Jeremy tried to find a way, and he couldn’t find a way, and he went through everything.”

Kevin gestures at Wynonna. “Ask little miss dark magic over here.”

“Me?”

“Oh my god,” Nicole whispers, realization crashing over her all at once. “Wynonna…you were trying reanimation spells. You…you didn’t get Waverly back, you brought Doc _back to life_.”

Wynonna sits down hard, landing with a thump on the porch floor. She has her injured, bandaged hand tucked to her chest, her other hand wrapped around her wrist.

“I…I brought him back to life? He’s not a vampire anymore?”

“No.” Kate shakes her head. “I felt it when it happened…like a tether snapping. I came here immedietely, because I figured you had something to do with it. Turns out, I wasn’t wrong.” She raises a curious eyebrow at Wynonna. “I didn’t know you dabbled in the dark arts.”

“I don’t,” Wynonna says quietly, “I…I didn’t? It…I thought maybe for Waverly, but now it’s Doc?”

Nicole presses the palms of her hands into her eyes. It’s overwhelming, the events of the last…two hours? Three? She’s not sure. After months of nothing happening but anger and searching, suddenly everything is happening at once, and it’s too much, all at once, and she can feel her brain overloading. A hysterical laugh bubbles up in her throat, and she holds a hand over her mouth.

Wynonna seems equally shell-shocked, and she and Nicole make eye contact, Wynonna’s mouth opening-

There’s a crunch of tires on the gravel driveway, and both Nicole and Wynonna twist to watch as a furious woman slams the door of her car and storms up the pathway, stomping up the steps of the porch.

Michelle Earp stands over them, fury brimming from every corner, arms crossed.

“Why the _Hell_ ,” she says softly, rage vibrating in very syllable, “did no one tell me that my daughter had been taken?”

It’s the last straw. Nicole can’t hold in anymore, and she laughs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you for reading and commenting and subscribing and giving kudos and bookmarking and whatever else. It makes my day, it truly does.


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